Five questions to answer before you spend a dollar on marketing

Most marketing that misses does so long before anything is designed, posted, or printed. It misses because the business behind it hasn’t settled a few basic questions. The good news: you can answer them in an afternoon, and every dollar you spend afterward works harder.

1. Who, specifically, are you trying to reach?

“Everyone” is not an audience. Even businesses that serve a broad public have a core group of customers who buy most often, refer the most, and are the easiest to serve well. Describe that person as concretely as you can: what they do, what they worry about, where they spend their attention, and what made them choose you over the alternatives.

If you already have customers, talk to a few of them. Ask why they came to you and what nearly stopped them. Their words are usually better marketing copy than anything written from scratch.

2. What problem do you solve, in their words?

Businesses tend to describe what they do. Customers care about what changes for them. A bookkeeper “reconciles accounts”; their client “stops dreading tax season.” Write down the problem you solve the way a customer would say it out loud, then check your website, signage, and sales materials against it.

Customers don’t buy what you do. They buy what changes for them because you did it.

3. Why you, and not the next option?

Your customers have choices, including doing nothing. What genuinely sets you apart? It might be speed, specialization, a personal level of service, your location, or the way you explain things. Pick the one or two differences that are true, that matter to your audience, and that competitors can’t easily claim. Lead with those.

4. What do you want people to do next?

Every piece of marketing should have one clear next step: call, book, visit, sign up, reply. When a flyer, a homepage, or a social post asks for three different things, people usually do none of them. Decide on the single most valuable action for each piece and make it obvious.

5. How will you know it worked?

Agree on what success looks like before you start, even if the measure is simple: more inquiries per month, more repeat customers, more people mentioning where they heard about you. Without a starting point, it’s impossible to tell a good investment from a lucky month.

Putting it together

Write your answers down on a single page. Share it with anyone who helps with your marketing, from a designer to a new hire answering the phone. When everyone works from the same page, your business starts to sound like itself everywhere, and that consistency is where brand recognition begins.

If you’d like a second set of eyes on your answers, send us a note. Working through questions like these is exactly where we start with every client.